The donation white paper, "Giving Japan 2010"

The Japan Fundraising Association (JFA) recently revealed Japan's first white paper on donation at a press conference held at The Nippon Foundation's Tokyo office. The paper shows that in 2009, a total of 37.6 million individuals made an estimated 545.5 billion yen in donations.

JFA was established in 2009 with the support of The Nippon Foundation, in an effort to encourage innovation in Japan's philanthropic world. The association's first white paper showed that total donations in Japan reach roughly 1 trillion yen (USD 12 billion) per year. The figure, which was better than expected, combines individuals' donations and 494 billion yen from private companies. The association plans to publish the white paper every year, with the hope that as awareness of philanthropy increases, donations will also rise. The group's objective is to increase the figure to 10 trillion in 10 years.

The report was compiled by a 7-member research team, including Naoto Yamauchi, a professor of Osaka Graduate School, Sachiko Kishimoto, bureau chief of the Center for Public Resources Develpment (NPO), and Masataka Uo, Executive Director of the Japan Fundraising Association. The resulting white paper contains 7 chapters on topics such as individual donations, corporate philanthropy, volunteerism and future challenges.

According to the white paper, 34% of people 15 and older made donations in 2009, several times previously recorded figures. The amount donated totalled 0.12% of the nation's GCP, well below the US' 1.6% and the UK's 0.68%. Corporate giving equalled 1.4% of companies' income.

44.2% of individual donations were religiously oriented, and 1.1% was for political causes. Most donations were collected through from donation boxes and street donations.

The Government Tax Commission recently revised the country's tax system for donations, making 50% of funds donated to NPOs deductable. Unfortunately, the research showed that this has had little effect on donations, revealing a need for NPOs to put more effort into fund raising.

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39.8 million people took part in volunteer activities, or 36.1% of people aged 15 and older. 59 billion hours were contributed, for an estimated worth of 10.5 trillion, or 2.2% of the GDP. Mr Uo said, "People who are interested in contributing to society are increasing. We want to increase donations to 10 trillion Yen ($ 820 trillion) by 2020. Therefore we continue to publish this report."